15-08-2010
4LESSON β 4 - The Buddha’s Words on Kamma
Four Discourses of the Buddha from the Majjhima Nikaya
Awakened One Shows the Path to Attain Ultimate Bliss
“Be a lamp unto yourselves.Work out your liberation with diligence.” “Just as in the great ocean there is but one taste β the taste of salt β so in this Doctrine and Discipline (dhammavinaya) there is but one taste β the taste of freedom (vimuttirasa)“:
Neither my life of luxury in the palace nor my life as an ascetic in the forest is the way to freedom.Buddha Quote
”The Buddha found that inner freedom–freedom from our negative emotions and obsessive selfconcern–is the essential precondition for goodness and social liberty”
“I am medicine for the sick. May I be both the doctor and their nurse, until the sickness does not recur.”
According to the Buddha, “There is free action, there is retribution, but I see no agent that passes out from one set of momentary elements into another one, except the [connection] of those elements.”
In Buddhist philosophy
Buddhism accepts both freedom and determinism (or something similar to it), but rejects the idea of an agent, and thus the idea that freedom is a free will belonging to an agent.According to the Buddha, “There is free action, there is retribution, but I see no agent that passes out from one set of momentary elements into another one, except the [connection] of those elements.”[ Buddhists believe in neither absolute free will, nor determinism. It preaches a middle doctrine, named pratitya-samutpada in Sanskrit, which is often translated as “inter-dependent arising”. It is part of the theory of kamma in Buddhism. The concept of kamma in Buddhism is different from the notion of karma in Hinduism. In Buddhism, the idea of kamma is much less deterministic. The Buddhist notion of kamma is primarily focused on the cause and effect of moral actions in this life, while in Hinduism the concept of karma is more often connected with determining one’s destiny in future lives.
In Buddhism it is taught that the idea of absolute freedom of choice (i.e. that any human being could be completely free to make any choice) is foolish, because it denies the reality of one’s physical needs and circumstances. Equally incorrect is the idea that we have no choice in life or that our lives are pre-determined. To deny freedom would be to deny the efforts of Buddhists to make moral progress (through our capacity to freely choose compassionate action). Pubbekatahetuvada, the belief that all happiness and suffering arise from previous actions, is considered a wrong view according to Buddhist doctrines. Because Buddhists also reject agenthood, the traditional compatibilist strategies are closed to them as well. Instead, the Buddhist philosophical strategy is to examine the metaphysics of causality. Ancient India had many heated arguments about the nature of causality with Jains, Nyayists, Samkhyists, CΔrvΔkans, and Buddhists all taking slightly different lines. In many ways, the Buddhist position is closer to a theory of “conditionality” than a theory of “causality”, especially as it is expounded by Nagarjuna in the MΕ«lamadhyamakakΔrikΔ
To finish building the free society dreamed of by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, we must draw upon the resources of the awakened imagination, which can be systematically developed by the spiritual sciences of India and Tibet. We have not yet tamed our own demons of racism, nationalism, sexism, and materialism. We have not yet made peace with a land we took by force and have only partly paid for. We are a teeming conglomeration of people from different tribes who have yet to embrace fully the humanness in one another. And none of us can be really free until all of us are
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Press Information Bureau
(C.M. Information Campus)
Information & Public Relations Department, U.P.
C. M. greets people on Independence Day
Lucknow: August 14, 2010
The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Ms. Mayawati has extended her heartiest felicitations and good wishes to the people of the State on the occasion of 63
rd anniversary of the Independence Day.In a message, the Chief Minister said that the
Independence Day was an occasion when all of us should
make resolve to realise the dreams of martyrs who
sacrificed their lives to achieve country’s freedom.
Paying tributes to the martyrs, she said that all of
us should remember their sacrifice and draw inspiration
from them. She said that we should also remember the
gurus, saints and great men of social movement, who
made sacrifices for the progress and development of
deprived, exploited and weaker sections of the society.
The Chief Minister said that we should remain
united and make more efforts for establishing an
egalitarian society. The State Government following the
policy of
“Sarvajan Hitai-Sarvajan Sukhai” iscommitted to establish an equality-based society and
progress of Sarva-Samaj, she added.
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